composition

“Be Kind” when you enter Hayfields Market © 2018 by Georgios Argyratos is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International 

This is what you see when you enter my favorite coffee place in NY. The picture was taken while I was looking at the register and my focus directly went to the “be kind” sign. It is positioned correctly based on the rule of thirds, and it is also a nice word with a meaning and a purpose. Unconsciously, the surroundings become less important and you feel good just looking at it.

In hindsight, my practice (Alexander technique) kicked in and while I started softening my eyes, allowing them to rest in my eye sockets, I noticed that my breathing started changing, my ribs and vision expanded, I felt more supported by the ground and I could now see the whole picture, like a soup with many ingredients and one flavorful taste. Now I was able to look “through” and receive information from the whole- then a smile came as I realized that there was a hidden, honest, and definitely rewarding (for horses) message hidden in plain sight. Focusing at the basket on the counter… a. crunchy. free. carrot! Yup. I thought “this is amusing and it’s happening at my favorite coffee shop Hayfields in a small town in NY, where you can park your horse, grab your flowers and an ice latte, snatch a carrot and chat with locals about walk, trot, center and gallop”.

“^{Free for Horses” at Hayfields by Georgios Argyratos is licensed by CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED}

The point of this post, except from the assignment, is also that a shift in perception leads to a delightful discovery — the basket of free carrots for horses is a wonderful reflection of how a change in focus and mindfulness can transform an ordinary moment into a richer, surprising, more fulfilling experience.

PS. To make sure that I can use my pictures of a public place, I did some research and found that “According to the law, in public places, you have the right to take photographs of anything that’s in plain view.” with the restriction that photos taken in a public space are permissible for non-commercial purposes. This is why I chose the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license.

“Watching teammates battle” by Megan Holkup

“Battle for the Ball” by Megan Holkup

In the original image, the player in the lower left was the dominant figure that was drawing attention, followed by the others on the right side. After noticing those individuals, the eye could then see the actual dramatic story that was unfolding on the floor. In order to highlight the jump ball that was happening on the floor, I needed to crop out the player on the left. By cropping out most of the portions of the bodies of the players on the right, they are no longer the focus, and instead the eye is drawn to the players on the floor. Additionally, they take up the center third of the image. This image would have been much more dramatic if the players on the right were not in the way, however, I wanted to highlight the fact that you can use cropping to draw focus to figures that might be slightly hidden as well by using cropping. As a bonus editing step I would likely bring up the highlights in the photo so that the white in the player’s jersey on the floor would stand out more. This would draw even more attention to that area.